Northern Italy in 1944, occupied by the Germans. Lanza was shot down south east of Florence, 200 miles behind enemy lines

Lanza said: "Amerigo was a frequent visitor to the cave.

"We liked Rigo and I think he liked us. We used to play games. One game was someone slapped your hand in the dark and you had to guess who slapped it.

"Sounds silly, but we tried to make the best of our circumstances, and had a good time playing games."

Two months had passed since the pilots had hurled themselves from their burning plane, and the Germans began to give up their searched and started to pull their soldiers out of the Italian countryside.

That's when Goffredo prepared Lanza and Todd's escape plan.

He wrote a letter to the German commander telling him he was going to be escorting some miners through town.